I know about hipsters. I
have sat amongst them admiringly as they drank their old skool tea and listened
to them chitter-chatter in gentle mellifluous tones about open access
functionality and creative end-use digitality; I’ve watched them ungroom each
other, watched how they raise their young. (They mostly don’t have young, but
those that do raise them very hipsterishly, a beautiful if randomly dressed
sight.) I’m in awe of the hipster, so it’s surprising that I haven’t been to
this pool before, being as it’s in the middle of hipster Hoxton. (Try saying
that.) I’m glad I’m not one though, it looks hard work and a bit self
conscious. I couldn’t be, anyway,
as I have peanut butter on my skinny jeans. Sad face.

For me, the important question has always been: what does a hipster wear
for swimming? I glide up to the Brittania leisure centre in eager anticipation. My quest for this answer will at last be found. Alas. It is not to be.

Synchronicity en route: as I drove past my old office on Old Street, my
old boss Roger Law was on Radio Four and his voice, a rude laugh hiding just
behind the boom, still has me quaking in my Converse. Firstly, I can report that hipsters drive electric cars - there are charging points in the car park. There was also a funeral cortege about to set off: massive
black horses plumed and magnificent, pulling a carriage festooned with brash
red yellow white flowers. Life has been a little tough the last few weeks so I
stopped a moment and bowed my head, seemingly in respect for someone’s loss but
also for my own.

In essence, the building is a great big green bike shed, the sort we
have in our front garden so we can actually get in the hall without pedals
clanking our ankles. There’s a strange sculpture by the entrance – fifty shades of grey
metal plates jointed together to form Man Wielding Javelin, his huge metal groin
pointing right at me. I pay my £4.50 to swim. The route to change goes via the pool, which is empty. I
put my bag down and look at it. You don’t often get to see these pools at
rest. It’s a fun pool. It’s a
free-form fun pool. There’s slides and bubbly bits and beaches and everywhere
you look, there is fun to be had. I stop a lifeguard and ask – where can I swim? He points to the
pool. Is there … somewhere else? I ask. He tells me there’s also a teaching
pool, but it’s for children. I look at the fun pool again – there is a square bit at
the end that’s deeper. I go through to a changing cubicle. I shut the door, sit on the bench
and have a think. And I think … nah. I aint gonna get in there. I ain’t gonna
be some tragic idiot in a swim cap and goggles on my own in a fucking FUN pool trying to
find a bit that’s deeper than half way up my calves. I pick up my bag and go
back out.

(Warning: This is the bit where I am an utter arse.)

I return to reception, to a very helpful man helpfully called
Mentor. I look him in the eye. ‘I cannot swim in there’ I say. ‘It’s
possible’ his colleague says, ‘there is a drop where it gets deep…’. ‘No’ I say, determinedly. ‘I have swum
in over 50 pools in London, some of them leisure pools. And I cannot. Swim. In
there. Can I have my money back please?’ Mentor hands over a fistful of coins,
and clutching them, I swan out. I'm sorry, Mentor. I am a total utter arse.

I want to swim though,
so I head further up into Hackney.

King’s Hall couldn’t be
more different, so cramped onto a narrow Hackney pavement that the bus stop is
practically on the steps; you’d need to cross the street to get a proper view.
The 1897 building is Grade II listed, sturdy Victorian goth, like a dirty old white
stone wedding cake left out in acid rain. There are stone steps up to the
reception, I go down corridors with fabulous old parquet flooring and the kind
of heavy wooden half-glass doors that mark out old corporation buildings of a
certain age, from when ‘corporation’ didn't mean corporate, it meant something decent and solid. There are separate male and female entrances …
which then both lead straight to the same changing room. It’s a pointless
illusion, which quite amused me in its pointlessness. It absolutely STINKS of
wee. REALLY stinks. I become a mouth breather.

I go through to the
pool to discover it’s full of children mid-lesson.The lifeguard tells me I can’t get in
for 15 minutes. (Thanks for telling me, in Reception. I think fondly back to Mentor. ) But I’ve already
invested my 20p in a locker, so I have no choice but to stand, like the tragic idiot in swim cap, and wait. (I do take my hat off.) This is TOTAL PAYBACK for being
such an arse. I watch the kids. Out of 31, four of them had goggles,
and two of the four actually wore the goggles on their eyes. It may be that in this
part of Hackney, goggles come fairly low on the list of essentials. The
lifeguard is beside me - I must look like a dangerous swimming
trespasser who might jump in without permission if he turns his back – so I
comment on it. ‘They wouldn’t have goggles if they fell in a river’ was his
explanation. Right. I said. But it might help them learn to swim properly? His
face said ‘I’m not looking for a new friend, you nutter.’ I shut up, and took
my 15 mins to make mental notes on the building.

I used my time
wisely, and now have it completely planned out, how to make it nice. Because the bones of the place are really good. They have that sturdy old solidity of heritage before it’s been heritage-ised. Proper knackered original features.
The kind of ‘distressed’ people pay extra for in my part of town. It is a Victorian pool, 25m, white glazed brick tiles, with a small square teaching pool in the same room. There’s a scratty iron balustrade
running round the gallery, perfectly shabby and flaked. The ceiling is wooden
with original narrow metal struts going across at intervals and with a long
raised window right down the middle - painted, maybe daubed is more accurate, in a mysterious dark nicotine shade. If Furrow and Bollock did this paint shade, it would be called Tar Residue. It cast everything in a gassy yellow entirely in keeping with
the changing room smell. Why keep natural light out? There’s a similar window in the changing room, and that one
is clear. The pool would be improved massively if you let light in. That’s
going to be my first job, when the pool is mine; the second job will be getting
rid of the massive antiquated metal vents at each end, thrumming away like
early Professor Branestawn air conditioning.

I love this building.
Really, I do. Swimming here is like eating at an authentic Italian caff run by
proper Italians serving home-made un-poncey food on formica tables. Yes,
occasionally one fancies a modern clean Italian restaurant that
deconstructs the antipasti in an amusing way. Basil jus? My, how witty you are Alfonso. But where does one feel more at home? Where does one prefer, if one is
honest? One prefers the unpretentious caff, doesn’t one. Or is one just me?

I’m not going to serve
up the whole polemic here, but to me these two pools sum up the whole public swimming
situation, c. 2012. On one hand, we have modern shiny ‘leisure’. On the other
we have old, expensive, swimming. The old buildings cost a bloody fortune to a)
maintain let alone b) do up. They’re destined to fall down without
intervention. They were built to last but they need some care along the way, like the elderly. And they are, the very bones of them, flipping lovely,
all in their proper proportions. The modern buildings are the NEW WAY, they are
the brash confident teenagers, fun
and energetic, but a little self-obsessed and, well, shallow. But the new will
get old one day, and then we’ll be back to square one. We must cherish the old.
OLD IS GOOD. (And no, I didn’t say all that just to get to this final self-serving point.)

The communal showers are
a bit crap – open and public and unisex. (I love the word unisex, but not as a shower situation.) If I'd wanted to share a shower with a four-year old boy being shouted at by his mother, I'd have journeyed back in time. It was tiresome. She started up a
relentless monotone: ‘Wash you
hair. Wash it. Wash it. Have you washed it? Wash your legs. Wash. Wash. Wash
your arms. Have you washed your arms? Wash them’ etc. I bit my lip, and moved
to get changed. They came too. ‘Dry your hair. Dry it. Have you dried it? Dry
your arms. Dry them. Are they dry? Dry your legs. Come on. Dry them. Are they
dry?’ Eventually he could stand it no more. YES he yelled. YES YES, and in a
final howl YEEEEESSSS. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her expression. She
was outraged. ‘Are you shouting? Is that it, you shouting? Are you shouting at
me?’ etc. Fade back to Jenny, making her escape.

On the way out I filled
in a customer feedback slip. I never do that. I wrote ‘The changing rooms
smell REALLY BAD. Like, REALLY REALLY bad’. I hope they take notice. The street outside, it smelled of sick. I sincerely hope these smells aren't there when you visit. But I offer no guarantee.

4 comments:

I don't think you're an arse for not wanting to swim in a glorified paddling pool - you're right: you would have looked a total div. Keep up the good work fighting for useful solidity one pool at a time...

haahhahahaha I swim in Kings Hall every week. It ALWAYS stinks of piss in the changing rooms! I love the building too, once you are in the water it is great. ~But yes everything else sucks. Really love your blog! Sam

Actually I love Britannia pool, it is fun. Best on the women only time when young women go to swim who are not usually able to and really enjoy themselves. It is going to be demolished, which is a shame. Kings Hall is fun, too. I remember it before they did it up, when there were three pools, and it really smelt!